Huckabee supporter backs Huntsman

Only days after Mike Huckabee announced he won’t run for president, his former South Carolina campaign chairman has thrown his support behind Jon Huntsman.

Mike Campbell — son of the late South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell — released a statement Monday saying he’d spoken with Huntsman and urged him to run for the Republican nomination in 2012.

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“On his recent visit to South Carolina, I had the opportunity to meet with Gov. Jon Huntsman, and I was extremely impressed,” Campbell said in a statement. “Gov. Huntsman and I spoke on the phone today, and we had a great conversation. I strongly urged him to run for the Republican nomination for president and offered my enthusiastic support if he does.”

Huckabee placed second in the 2008 South Carolina primary — the second primary after New Hampshire and the first test of candidates in the South. Huckabee’s Saturday evening announcement that he wouldn’t seek the presidency in 2012 freed activists and supporters around the country to look for a new candidate, and Campbell’s move makes him one of the first top Huckabee backers to commit to someone new.

Because he served at the top of Huckabee’s campaign apparatus, it’s a significant get for Huntsman, who is largely unknown in the state.

“With Mike [Campbell] having been at the forefront of the Huckabee campaign, I think it could be a sign that he’s going to take friends, family, fundraising capacity, supporters over to Huntsman,” said one longtime South Carolina operative who has yet to commit to a presidential candidate.

The scrambling for support from people like Campbell began before Huckabee’s eponymous Fox News show even ended.

“Our country has been very fortunate to have Mike Huckabee as a leader and public servant,” Huntsman said in an emailed statement just moments after Huckabee’s announcement. “It is unfortunate that we will not have his voice — or his bass guitar — in the presidential debate.”

Huntsman hasn’t spent much time in the state yet, just one visit. Campbell was one of several dozen influential Republicans that Huntsman sat down with during his visit there in early May, with the hope that more would also jump on board.

Campbell’s voice carries particular weight in South Carolina, regardless of his ties to the former Arkansas governor. The wildly popular Gov. Campbell left behind a legacy that borders on dynasty in the state — his other son, Carroll Campbell III, ran for Congress in 2010 but lost in the primary, and Mike Campbell ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor — and he and his family have played a significant role in almost every Republican primary since 1980.

When Huckabee announced Campbell’s backing in 2008, for instance, the Campbells were billed as the “First Family of South Carolina presidential politics.” The elder Campbell worked closely with Lee Atwater, the famed political operative, and both backed Ronald Reagan’s bid for president in 1980 when he was still considered an underdog.

And Huntsman, with almost no name recognition and a moderate reputation, starts out that way — giving Campbell’s backing more weight than it otherwise might have.

“He’s endorsing someone that not many South Carolinians have heard of; that’s going to help Huntsman because Mike’s very well known,” the South Carolina operative said. “It’s a blank slate, and I think having someone who has been this prominent in South Carolina politics makes a big difference.”